Genesis - Week Three

Introduction

This study should address...

What does the Bible say?

What does the Bible Mean?

How can we apply that to our lives

Legend

Important

Questions

References

Personal Thoughts

Chapter 1

Verses 24-31 (Day Six)

Genesis 1:24–31 ESV

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Questions or Comments on Day Six?

“Livestock and creeping things, and beasts of the earth”

These categories are not scientific or exhaustive

Likely the three categories a nomadic Shepard would see animals

“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”

Two big themes in this line, imago dei and the divine council

Imago Dei

Applied to humans and not animals, so we are the only creatures in God’s image

Similiar to ANE kings that were imagers of gods

Connected to dominion over creation in phrase

What does it mean to be an image of God?

Many Theories

https://drmsh.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Image-of-God-LBD.pdf

Physical Appearance?

Physical Attributes?

Reason, free will, intelligence, emotions, etc.

Spiritual Abilities?

Prayer, morality, ability to know God

Possessing a Soul?

Relationship?

A Responsibility?

This is the Heiser view, which essentially says that being an imager of God is a role that we have to represent God in the human realm

Just as the Elohim and angels are His imagers and representatives in the divine realm

Who is us and our?

Some say its a way of speaking

Some say Trinity

Reading NT into the OT

How would the Israelites would have read this?

Some say Heavenly Host or Divine Council

Heiser view, points to the Elohim also being imagers

Man is the Hebrew “Adam” which can mean mankind, or male, and becomes the proper name of the first man

“Male and female He created them”

Equal and yet distinct in their responsibility as Imagers

“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion”

Divine command for sexual reproduction

Creating imagers is part of God’s plan for mankind

Subduing the earth is to bring it to submission

The ESV Study Bible Chapter 1

(Hb. kabash) elsewhere means to bring a people or a land into subjection so that it will yield service to the one subduing it (

The earth and all other creation is made for man, to be used and governed

Continue to control the Chaos as God did during creation

“Behold…”

God provides for His creation, man and creature alike

These are the plants provided on Day 6

“Very good”

Creation is inherently good

Sin was not present at the beginning

God spent five days preparing the Earth for humans

However, God is also the God of all creation not just mankind

Chapter 2

Verses 1-3 (Day Seven)

Genesis 2:1–3 ESV

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Questions or Comments on Day Six?

Day 7 is placed in chapter 2 as it points forward, not a conclusion but a start of an ongoing story

“...and all the host in them”

Strongly indicates the completed creation of heaven and the angels, elohim, etc.

“…on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested…”

Could be translated “by the seventh day” and “he ceased”

This shows that he did not work on the sabbath, and that he completed his work not rested from weariness

Faithlife Study Bible Chapter 2

Some translations render this “on the seventh day,” suggesting that God worked on the seventh day in violation of the Sabbath. However, the Hebrew text here can be translated “by the seventh day,” resulting in the verb being rendered “had finished,” expressing the completion of the act.

he rested The Hebrew verb used here, shavath, means “cease” or “rest.” The English word “Sabbath” comes from the related Hebrew noun shabbath. The word implies that God’s work of creation was completed, so He stopped.

“God blessed the seventh day and made it holy”

Establishment of the sabbath

Justification for the fifth commandment in Exodus

Exodus 20:8–11 ESV

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Recorded differently in Deuteronomy commandment

Deuteronomy 5:12–15 ESV

“ ‘Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Connected to the time spent in bondage in Egypt, some have suggested that the rest was required because the Israelites were accustomed to no rest. Id est they were now being forced to take rest

Also mentioned in Hebrews

Hebrews 4:3–11 ESV

For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’ ” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.” Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Some interpret this to indicating that the seventh day and God’s rest continues until now

This would further imply that God is no longer creating

Matthew Henry - “In miracles, he has overruled nature, but never changed its settled course, or added to it.”

Do miracles overrule nature?

Therefore is the world operating purely on natural processes with no divine intervention in adaption, evolution, etc?

John 5:17 ESV

But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

Sabbath is rooted in God’s very nature and ingrained in creation.

Mark 2:27 ESV

And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

This is also where the creation reflects ANE and ancient Israelite temple building and consecration.

God does not rest because he is weary, but because He has spent 6 days creating the location where he shall dwell

So, upon completion he rests in His new dwelling place

How and when should we take Sabbath?

ESV Church History Study Bible Notes: Voices from the Past, Wisdom for the Present Chapter 2

2:3 For we shall ourselves be the seventh day, when we shall be filled and replenished with God’s blessing and sanctification. There shall we be still, and know that he is God, that he is that which we ourselves aspired to be when we fell away from him and listened to the voice of the seducer, “Ye shall be as gods,” and so abandoned God, who would have made us as gods, not by deserting him but by participating in him. For without him what have we accomplished, save to perish in his anger? But when we are restored by him, and perfected with greater grace, we shall have eternal leisure to see that he is God, for we shall be full of him when he shall be all in all. (Augustine, The City of God)

General References and Sources

Study Bibles

ESV Study Bible

ESV Church History Study Bible

ESV Literary Study Bible

Spurgeon Study Bible

Faithlife Study Bible

Commentaries

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

Matthew Poole’s Commentary

Dennis Prager’s Rational Bible on Genesis

David Atkinson, The Message of Genesis 1-11

John Davis, Paradise to Prison

Church History

Augustine, City of God

Augustine, Confessions

Aquinas, Summa Theologica